Linda Nazareth

Young people often complain about being left out of the democratic process. The demographics, however, tell us they could have plenty of influence on this federal election — if they choose to assert it.

If 2011 voter participation patterns are followed, voters on Oct. 19 will be disproportionately older than 55, with a large number of them older than 65. If, however, any party manages to mobilize the youth vote, we could see a significant shift in who chooses our leaders.

Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program has been widely demonized in the media and is currently under review by the federal government.

But the debate is being characterized — erroneously — as a choice between hiring Canadians at one price and hiring TFWs at a lower price. In fact, the choice may well be between hiring TFWs or hiring no one at all — and if that’s the case, Canada’s economy pays the price and employment is destroyed, not created, for more people.

Take a look at the Bank of Canada’s latest Business Outlook Survey, where 23 per cent of surveyed companies said that a lack of suitable workers was making it difficult to meet demand. Or better yet, talk to a hiring manager in the technology sector.

I spoke to such a technology executive at a company located in the Kitchener-Waterloo technology triangle. That’s a place where BlackBerry recently cut plenty of jobs, and where you might expect to find a surplus of highly-qualified workers. And yet, when the company in question set out to find someone to head a new division, they were not able to find anyone they considered suitable except for an individual from Silicon Valley.